The GENIUS Way Chelsea Exploited Man City's Biggest Weakness
Chelsea 4-4 Manchester City might already be the game of the season. But while Cole Palmer's dramatic late penalty might only have salvaged a point for his team, their overall performance shows that Mauricio Pochettino absolutely had Pep Guardiola's number.
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00:00 Hello everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here and can you imagine if your job was to come
00:08 in on a Monday morning and try and make sense of that?
00:11 Nice little life for me.
00:12 Anyway, Chelsea 4, Manchester City 4 and probably the most interesting game we've seen in the
00:16 Premier League this season, not because it had loads and loads of goals and it was dead
00:19 exciting and it was rich in narrative, but because Chelsea managed to do something to
00:24 Manchester City that never ever almost happens.
00:28 They stopped Manchester City from being Manchester City and in doing so proved that they're not
00:33 just a great team themselves, but that other teams might be able to do that too.
00:38 Okay, so to show you how they stopped Man City from being Man City, I must first show
00:44 you what Man City are.
00:45 And this was the starting line-up as it appeared everywhere and a very good lesson as to why
00:48 you never really pay attention anymore, especially in Pep Guardiola teams, to what the line-up
00:53 actually says.
00:54 Because you've got your back four here, you've got a double pivot in the middle of Bernardo
00:57 Silva and Rodri with sort of three strong along the middle and Erling Haaland there,
01:01 but it looked nothing like that.
01:03 I mean, case in point, these are the average positions for the starting 11 across the course
01:06 of the game.
01:07 And the first thing that'll jump out at you is that's not a double pivot.
01:11 That's just Rodri.
01:12 What City have actually been trying to do this season is pretty much just play with
01:15 a flat four right behind Erling Haaland.
01:18 So kind of like a really aggressive 4-1-4-1.
01:21 This allows Alvarez to kind of pretend he's a centre forward and get around Haaland.
01:25 It allows Silva to get on the ball where he wants to be on the ball.
01:27 And more importantly, because they use Jeremy Doku all the time, it allows him to be nice
01:31 and high and stretch teams so he can run at defenders and do this whole dribbling thing
01:35 that Man City are trying out.
01:37 And it also means if they want to do that patented box midfield of theirs, Rodri can
01:40 shuffle over and Kyle Walker can come across or he can just sort of mill around here and
01:44 then a Kanji can push forward.
01:46 It gives them options for building up the way they normally like to build up.
01:49 But the problem this creates, which hasn't really been exploited this season, is because
01:52 Johnstone's not being here means it's harder for them to get back into their shape whenever
01:57 the ball is turned over, whenever it is in transition.
02:01 Because as well as either Walker or a Kanji having to get into the back four straight
02:04 away, you've still got to get Silva all the way back from that attacking eight position.
02:08 Alvarez has to kind of float back into the middle somewhere.
02:10 There's a few things have to happen for them to get nicely set to defend.
02:14 Which is why, and Rodri even touched on this in the post-match interview, they don't like
02:18 the game to be transitional.
02:20 They don't like there to be lots of turnovers.
02:21 They don't want it to be end to end because they know that's kind of a little bit of a
02:25 weakness for them.
02:26 And Chelsea looked at this and said, "Oh, you don't want a transitional game, do you
02:29 not?
02:30 Well, here's all the transitions in the world."
02:32 Pretty much their entire game plan from an attacking sense was to target the exact moment
02:37 that City would leave Rodri isolated.
02:39 So when the ball is turned over, a Kanji, if he stepped forward, a Walker if he's come
02:43 across, they've got to move back, which leaves him on his own.
02:46 And there was always a bit of time before Bernardo Silva or whoever else comes back
02:49 to make this shape up again.
02:51 So in this exact moment here, when it's just Rodri, they flooded that area.
02:58 Chelsea were also supposed to have a 4-2-3-1 that was not actually anything like a 4-2-3-1.
03:02 But if we put the average positions over again, you can see Enzo Fernandez was pretty much
03:06 as deep as Caicedo the whole game.
03:08 He did sit in that area.
03:10 He did make it hard for City to play through.
03:13 But look at this bit here.
03:15 You could throw a tea towel over Sterling, Jackson, Gallagher and Palmer.
03:20 Now there's two things you have to understand about average positions, which kind of explains
03:24 what Chelsea are doing here.
03:25 Like first of all, if you are just in that position a lot, that will be your average
03:28 position.
03:29 But also if you're interchanging positions a lot, you will kind of come out somewhere
03:33 in the middle of those two.
03:34 And if you just look at where Palmer and Gallagher are on this, that does kind of explain that.
03:38 Because normally, Palmer was supposed to be on the right hand side, Gallagher was supposed
03:41 to be the 10.
03:42 But more often than not, we saw Gallagher go out to the right hand side when Chelsea
03:46 were trying to press and Palmer would then come into the middle for the space he left.
03:50 And also you can see here that Jackson is technically deeper than Sterling.
03:53 That's because he was pushing up against Man City's back line, but he was also dropping
03:56 off to receive the ball, trying to pull a defender with him.
03:59 And that was creating space for all three of them to try and target.
04:03 Sterling is the furthest forward because Sterling had the most fun with it.
04:06 That was an absolute all-timer of a display from him.
04:09 And it was this combination of just constantly rotating position, constantly targeting Rodri
04:13 when he was exposed that just caused Man City all kinds of problems.
04:17 One thing they never ever tend to do is get drawn towards the wrong man and leave space.
04:22 And yet Chelsea managed to do that three or four times and make great chances out of it.
04:26 For the first goal, you can see here that Diaz is the one who's tried to step forward
04:30 into the midfield to be alongside Rodri.
04:31 And when Palmer gets on the ball, there is space in behind him for him to take him on
04:35 and try and go at him.
04:36 But he doesn't do that.
04:37 Instead, he goes out to the right hand side, seeing if he can pull Diaz even further away
04:43 from the centre to leave room for Rhys James to run in.
04:45 Now, given that Man City are defending the edge of their own box here, have you ever
04:49 seen them as disorganised as this?
04:51 You can park a bus, you can park ten buses in the space they've left here.
04:55 And yet it does require quite a fortunate bounce off Guardiola's foot.
04:58 He has a bit of a mare with that one, but it's still a problem that comes about from
05:02 Chelsea moving Man City's players around and creating space.
05:05 The best example of mine, and apologies to Male Gusto for showing this, Sterling nicks
05:09 the ball off Rodri in sort of the final third.
05:12 And City do what they don't normally do.
05:14 They panic.
05:15 There's two players there.
05:16 They have a man each, and yet they both go to Sterling.
05:20 He draws them into the middle of the pitch.
05:22 He creates that room for Gusto.
05:24 He puts him in and, well, he should score.
05:27 He a million percent should score.
05:30 You would score.
05:31 I would score that.
05:32 We would both score that, I think.
05:33 But the added time equaliser, or certainly the play that built up to the penalty that
05:36 was added time equaliser, is an absolute Mauricio Pochettino masterclass on how to stretch
05:43 a team and make space.
05:46 This is where Raheem Sterling picks up the ball, and it is 5v5.
05:49 They do not have a man over.
05:51 They have not magically created some amazing opportunity.
05:55 They just have five players perfectly positioned to break down a four with a holding midfielder.
06:01 Jackson is perfectly in between the two.
06:03 City sent him back, so neither of them can be totally sure whose man that is.
06:07 Sterling and Brogier, the two 10s in this scenario, have both dropped away from that
06:11 back line but done it with a lot of space between them, so Rodri in the middle here,
06:14 again, can't really pick a player to go to.
06:16 And that would normally just mean that the full backs then come in to sort of congest
06:20 the space so those three players can't do anything, but the two wide players for Chelsea
06:23 are both practically on the touchline.
06:25 They cannot afford to come in any more narrow than they already are because they'll leave
06:30 them completely free with, let's face it, plenty of space in behind should they want
06:35 to run in.
06:36 Realising that the Cangi has zoned in on Sterling, Jackson makes a brilliant run in behind him
06:41 which takes Diaz away and leaves all this space for Brogier.
06:44 Now it's a great ball from Sterling and a great ball from Brogier because it has to
06:48 be because we're still talking about a very small amount of space here, but again, panics
06:53 Manchester City, it panics Diaz.
06:55 He rushes in, he desperately tries to get a block in and he gives away the penalty in
06:59 the process.
07:00 Now the thing is, if you're a Man City fan, you might have watched that game and feel
07:02 so many of these goals were self-inflicted, like you could have done so much better on
07:07 lots of them.
07:08 But you've got to remember, you're Manchester City, there's a reason you don't see this
07:12 happen very often and you have to credit Chelsea for consistently creating the situations that
07:18 forced you into these bad decisions.
07:20 And it wasn't just when they were attacking either, by the way, how they pressed Manchester
07:23 City was really good as well.
07:25 And we'll just overlay City's idealised build-up shape here, the three and then they've got
07:30 the box.
07:31 They just completely sat off the three centre-backs.
07:33 They didn't pay any attention to them really whatsoever.
07:36 Some would chase them down and harry them now and then, but they were quite happy to
07:40 congest the middle of the pitch to outnumber their outnumbering tactic.
07:44 And this is an incredibly risky thing to do, by the way, because down that left-hand side,
07:48 City had both Vardial and Doku, two players who would love that amount of space to run
07:53 into.
07:54 Two players City have specifically brought in this season because they do something City
07:58 don't normally do and that's carry the ball, that's beat players, that's run into that
08:03 kind of space.
08:04 So they've been completely exposed down that side.
08:07 But Cole Palmer, right, for all people are praising his attacking contribution because
08:11 City couldn't live with him and he scored that penalty and that feels like it's the
08:15 story.
08:16 His dogged determination when they were defending to cover this area, yes, but also constantly
08:22 get across to protect Rhys James was, I think, his best contribution to that match.
08:27 Yes, when Chelsea were building up, he would rotate with Gallagher and Gallagher would
08:30 go out there and Palmer would get into the middle.
08:31 But when they were defending, that was his side of the pitch and he never really left
08:36 it exposed.
08:37 Sterling as well was absolutely brilliant.
08:38 I've never seen Kyle Walker have that much trouble with a wing and Nicholas Jackson,
08:42 I've been saying since the start of the season, was going to be an absolute baller.
08:44 So nice to see him finally getting his flowers.
08:47 Enzo Fernandez, lo and behold, when he's not required to do every single thing for Chelsea,
08:52 actually looks like an amazing player.
08:53 You could pull out great performances from this Chelsea team pretty much across the pitch.
08:58 But for all we're talking about the game plan here and how well disciplined they were and
09:02 how well organized they were and how well drilled they were.
09:05 This was a structure designed to remove structure.
09:09 It was all designed to make for a chaotic game and Man City could not live with Chelsea
09:15 in a chaotic game.
09:16 Oh, so that's great, Adam.
09:17 Is that just how we beat Man City now?
09:19 Well, well, no, because they didn't beat them.
09:22 It was a really chaotic game and Chelsea were much the better side, but they had to score
09:25 four goals just to get a draw.
09:28 And yes, you could argue the first penalty was absolutely nonsense and then the winner
09:32 was a deflected goal off Thiago Silva.
09:35 But this is still Man City here.
09:37 There isn't just a magic button you can press or magic system you can play and it'll beat
09:41 them.
09:42 If you make the game chaotic, they'll score a lot of goals too.
09:45 But you can at least, as Chelsea proved, really get at them.
09:49 And then who knows, you get them on a day where maybe they're a little bit wasteful
09:52 in front of goal and you might have yourself a little victory.
09:55 Certainly fun to watch either way.
09:57 Anyway, there were like a million things I could have talked about in this game.
10:00 Like Raheem Sterling looks back to being Liverpool's Raheem Sterling, which is very interesting.
10:04 Conor Gallagher, he should probably be starting in England's midfield if they want to play
10:07 a three.
10:08 Sanchez is both tragedy and comedy for the audiences of Stamford Bridge.
10:13 And Ruben Diaz, did somebody space jam him?
10:17 Have his powers gone?
10:18 Also, why is that light gone off?
10:19 That's it though, because editing takes time.
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10:31 fun stuff coming up over the next couple of weeks.
10:34 Sorry, what?
10:35 There's another international break?
10:37 Oh well, you can get me on Twitter, X, Instagram, everything at AdamClearlyCLEOY.
10:41 The entire 442 social spectrum, it's in the corner of the video.
10:44 I don't know why I bother pointing it out.
10:46 But until next time, I've been Adam Cleary, this has been 442, that was the best game
10:49 I've seen in ages, and I'll see you soon. Bye
10:52 Bye.